Recently I have shared a couple of different posts here about short walks I have taken with my camera. Where I find an area and visit it with my camera to capture the walk. I thought it sounded like it could be an interesting little challenge for those who like their photography. With an added challenge to write about your walk while sharing the images.

Weekend Photo Challenge

Basically the challenge is to head out with your camera for a short walk around an interesting area. I don’t want to put any rules on the challenge, I just want to encourage you to get out with the camera.

Below I will give you some examples that I have recently shared here. I will also give you a few ideas on where to start with your own walk. I would also encourage those with a blog if it seems suitable to share your adventure. But if you don’t have a blog there are other options to share your adventure as well.

Some Examples

I have recently shared a couple of different walks that I have done in a similar fashion to this challenge. They are somewhat different to the vast majority of my travel related posts here, where I share the entirety of my day exploring a city. These more recent posts are literally just a small part of a day that I wanted to share with you.

The first was a walk I took around Kangaroo Point in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. You can take a look at the post “Sunday Afternoon at Kangaroo Point“. The walk at Kangaroo Point covered a distance of just 1.5km and took in a couple of interesting sights along the way. I did not plan the walk in fact it was on one of the hottest days this summer in Brisbane. I should have just taken the shortest route to where I was going, but instead decided to take this walk.

The second walk was through Manly Harbour Village. I shared the post around a week ago with my journey and you can read that here “Take a Walk at Manly Harbour Village“. The total walking distance I covered to capture the photos for this walk was less than 500m. Again I did not plan the walk I was in the area to have coffee and decided to explore a little. Of course, capturing the exploration in photos and sharing it here.

The Mindset

One aspect of this idea that I have had to face is going beyond what I personally find interesting. To me both of the walks I have recently shared were things I found to be every day. In my mind they are just places that I go from time to time and it is not something people would be interested in seeing.

However, the more I think about it, these familiar areas that I visit and do not find interesting to someone else might be very interesting. It is rather similar to when I travelled overseas. Areas and places that I visited and photographed and shared in blog posts here, are just someone else’s every day. To the people who live there they are quite likely very uninteresting.

So with a little change of mindset I have been able to look at the world around me and see it in a different way. I can look at an area not with the eyes of a local, but with the eyes of someone who might be travelling through. The eyes of someone who is seeing this area for the first time.

Inspiration

When it comes to looking around where you live or work what can you see differently. Imagine that you are coming to the area for the first time, what captures your attention. See if you are able to flip that switch in your mind to see the area through the eyes of a traveller.

So here are some ideas of what to look for that might make for an interesting story.

• Old buildings, is there a building that has some history or a story that is interesting.
• Parklands, with interesting trees or gardens can be another place to photograph.
• A Historic Part of the city, If you live in a city there are often some areas that are older with some interesting older architecture.
• A Reinvigorated area, sometimes a city will try and encourage revitalising an area and bring in new influences.
• A Shopping Strip, while not always interesting, some can have a character of their own.
• A Riverwalk or Boardwalk, sometimes nice views over the water, city skylines or dawn or dusk photos make for an interesting story.
• Cafe crawl, capture a journey from cafe to cafe with coffee, food and cake.

Writing About Your Adventure

In putting this little challenge out there I am not looking for you to take the greatest photos and write the best story ever. I just want to challenge you to try something a little different. So of course if you don’t feel comfortable sharing the story that is no problem at all.

For those who would like to share their photos I have a few options of just how to do that. If you have a blog and you feel that the walk fits in with your other content, it is the perfect place to share. But if you don’t have a blog, or it does not feel right to share it there below are some other options.

1. Facebook, I am sure that your friends would love to see some of your photos. When you share photos you do also have a chance to write a little about them, so tell a little story about your walk.
2. Instagram posts, You can progressively post the photos you take to Instagram as you take your walk, or post them all  together at the end. It does make it a little different to sharing a continuous story but can still work out well.
3. Instagram story, If you don’t want your photos to hang around forever Instagram stories can be an option. They disappear after 24 hours, but of course this makes it difficult to write much of your story. But that also may be what you are comfortable with.
4. There are also a range of other photo sharing sites that you could share you photos on. Sites such as 500px, Viewbug or Flickr.

I hope that you do share your story and would love to take a look at your results. If you are sharing to a blog I would love to see a comment below with a link to your post. Alternatively, you can also post a comment with your Instagram account or Facebook page below if you like.

I recently shared a post where I shared some of my Favourite Sunsets From 2014. In this post, I decided to make a little assumption without having fully worked through the following years. I expected that I would have plenty of sunsets from 2015 and 2016, with few from 2017. The result was quite different, I end up combining my Favourite Sunsets From 2015/2016. While I have so many from 2017, that I am going to split them into two posts.

Favourite Sunsets From 2017

In total, I have nine sunsets to share with you from 2017 and have decided to split the post into two parts. The first part which is below will share four sunsets from Cleveland Point during 2017. While the second part which I will share next week will include another five sunsets. These sunsets mostly come from some of my travels throughout 2017.

Cleveland Point Sunsets

It is no surprise that I have a great number of sunsets from the Cleveland Point Area. I have found it a great location to capture the sunset as you can do so over the water. While not what everyone looks for I do like to include the water in sunset photos thanks to the reflections it can provide.

Cleveland Point, 1st April 2017

One feature that I do love to capture at sunset are the sun rays. I have found that it is rather unpredictable whether they will appear on any given day. But sometimes you get rewarded with the rays spreading out over the clouds like in this image.

On this particular day, I had stopped in a slightly different place to where I usually captured the sunset at Cleveland Point. Around half a kilometre before arriving at Cleveland Point, there is a parking area near the Volunteer Marine Rescue. The outlook is almost identical to Cleveland point, just a slightly different angle. I spent around half an hour watching as the sun dropped below the horizon. Over this time the sun rays only appear anything like this for about six minutes.

Cleveland Point, 2nd April 2017

I know this sunset is literally the day after the first one above, but how different two days can be. Even though the two images do not both demonstrate it the sky conditions were somewhat similar. There was a blanket of cloud that covered almost the entire sky on both days. However, on this day there was little to no cloud on the horizon where the sun was setting.

without the cloud on the horizon, there seemed to be no sun rays beaming across the clouds. So I mentioned previously in a post sometimes it can take getting into a different position to capture something interesting. With the tide low, this meant that a lot of the loose rock was exposed and with the reflections on the water this made for an interesting point of view.

Cleveland Point, 25th June 2017

Not all days are about capturing a sunset that has a lot of action in it. Whether that is the sun rays or the reflections. Sometimes it is nice just to capture the serenity of what is the twilight or blue hour.

On this particular day, I remember it was almost perfectly still. If there was a breeze it was so gentle it was barely noticeable. I look back through the photos and there are numerous images with mirror-like water and reflections.

Likewise, this photo also helps me to illustrate something else I like too from time to time. It was almost 10 minutes after the sun had set that I took this image. I think it is quite a nice photo but time and time again I watch photographers leave immediately after the sun has gone. Like the sunset finishes once you cannot see the physical sun anymore. Whereas so many occasions I have captured much better photos anything up to 30 minutes after the sun has disappeared.

Cleveland Point, 8th July 2017

For me, this is I think the most interesting sunset from 2017 that I captured. While it is a beautiful colour across the clouds and a nice reflection. It is that one little cloud that is throwing a shadow onto the main layer of cloud that catches my eye. I am thinking it will probably catch most people’s eye before they read this part.

While I do see occasional other sunset photos posted by people, I saw a number on this specific day. In a regular week, I would be lucky to see one friend post a sunset on Facebook. On this particular day, at least four different friends posted a photo of this small cloud and the shadow it created. All from different spots around the local area.

Chasing The Sun

While I do not get out as often as I would like to chase the sunset, it is one of the more consistent parts of photography I pursue. I hope that you have enjoyed this little selection of sunsets, and look forward to sharing one more post from 2017 with you next week.

Last week I shared a post that contained a collection of sunsets that I capture in 2014. I hope that you enjoyed that post as today I am sharing with you another collection of sunsets. These ones come from a period of two years in 2015 and 2016.

I am somewhat surprised at how few sunsets I captured in these two years. In fact, I have a total of six images to share with you today. Which is actually almost every sunset I captured across these two years. There may have been one or two more, but without any reasonable photos to show for it.

Cleveland Point, 7th April 2015

One of the most interesting aspects of photographing the sunset is that you never know where to point the camera. In the image above the sun, would be to the left of the image and is throwing the light onto the cloud. The sun was just on the cusp of dropping below the horizon and throwing out this amazing colour. I could have easily picked out any number of photos from this day to share as the colours were amazing a good 15 minutes either side of this photo.

Christchurch, 23rd October 2015

One time that I wish I could capture more sunsets is when I am travelling. However, it is always a challenge to line up everything to make that happen. It was more chance than planning that found me in this location to capture the sunset when I was visiting Christchurch.

I was doing a little Geocaching with some friends and I noticed the colours of the sunset as we were stopped here. I managed to capture this one, although it is a little fuzzy, which is the result of no tripod handy.

Cleveland Point, 10th May 2016

Sometimes the idea of capturing the sunset sort of grabs me without a lot of time to do so. On this occasion, I saw some of the colour in the cloud before the sun had set and decided to try and capture it. The only problem was that it took slightly longer than I expected to get to Cleveland Point. Without too many other options along the way, I salvaged what I could with some of the colour left in the cloud.

Cleveland Point, 20th May 2016

Almost more interesting than the colours in the cloud sometimes is the formations that the clouds make. The way these clouds formed had no real pattern to it and they constantly changed through the afternoon. I captured this photo almost 20 minutes after the sun had dropped below the horizon. You could never have picked that the clouds would turn this pink/red colour. Most of the period of the setting sun had been totally orange before this colour appeared.

Cleveland Point, 22nd June 2016

I believe that this picture while far from technically perfect is the most interesting of these six photos. It appears like sun rays coming up from where the sun might have dropped below the horizon. The sun actually had dropped below the horizon behind the camera here.

The rays are what is known as anticrepuscular rays. A regular crepuscular ray is what you see for example when the sun rays are coming down through the cloud. Often when you see these rays if you look in the direct opposite direction you may have a chance to see anticrepuscular rays. They might sound strange, and uncommon, but if you are in the right conditions and know what you are looking for they can be seen.

Margate, 8th July 2016

On occasion, the setting sun doesn’t create a whole lot of interest itself. Such as this day, the sky was clear of most cloud, the water was nearly smooth and the sun was still too bright. So I pointed the camera just a little away from the sun and capture a much more interesting photo. The horizon across the water includes a number of the glasshouse mountains which are between Brisbane the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

Sunsets

I am still amazed at just how different the sunset can be from the same location at times. You can possibly see that just from the number of photos in this post and the last at Cleveland Point. I had originally predicted that I would not have enough sunsets for a 2017 post. However, as it turns out I have too many. The result will be two posts with 2017 sunsets over the next couple of weeks.